Quevedo and Baroque Literature: An In-Depth Analysis
Inside the World: Quevedo
Inside the World is a short prose piece, part of a larger collection of dreams. All these dreams share a common element: the main character’s perception shifts, initially presenting an allegory, which then reveals a different reality upon closer inspection. This perceptual shift is triggered by a simple movement—walking. The narrative structure, with the characters walking together, evokes earlier traditions, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy or Petrarch’s works.
The work is divided into two main parts: a prologue addressed to the reader and the dream itself. Within the dream, there’s an introductory section presenting the setting and characters, followed by a series of scenes introducing new characters and situations, and finally, a concluding lesson.
The prologue offers a glimpse into the diverse types of readers, engaging in a form of social critique.
The core of the work showcases various situations, all following a similar pattern: the narrator observes something or encounters someone, initially interpreting it one way, only to have reality revealed by Dodsworth. This highlights the deceptive nature of appearances.
The characters are ordinary people one might encounter daily: young, old, women, men, a sheriff, a widow, a philosopher, a thief, and so on. These are more social types than fully developed characters. The work subtly critiques the falsehoods of these social types, employing carefully crafted language to avoid appearing ludicrous.
Devotional Literature
Devotional literature is often associated with asceticism and philosophical systems like Senecanism and Stoicism. Quevedo mastered this type of philosophy, having been connected to Justus Lipsius.
Sacred oratory, a prominent feature of this period, evolved into a para-theatrical form, incorporating voice inflections and gestures. This led to the emergence of several notable speakers.
Political Literature
Political literature also held significant importance, branching into two main types:
- Tacitism: Related to the literature of ideas, it refers to the publication of the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus. It revisited Machiavelli’s theory of political pragmatism and reason of state within the framework of orthodoxy. It connects to the broader concept of human thought as a strategy, becoming a crucial element in the articulation of a moral framework.
- Theorization of the Modern State: Exemplified by Hobbes and his work Leviathan.
Gracián
Gracián, a Jesuit writer, produced a series of works reflecting on the human condition. His writings emphasize that human existence in the world must be guided by strategy, as articulated in his Manual Oracle and Art of Prudence. He is also known for The Critic, an extensive work divided into three parts, dominated by the idea that knowledge of the world leads to disillusionment. It is presented as a novel in dialogue form.
Aphorisms
The genre of aphorisms is equivalent to the maxims of the humanists. The Manual Oracle and Art of Prudence, along with François Duc de la Rochefoucauld’s Maxims, Jean de La Bruyère’s Characters, and Blaise Pascal’s Thoughts, represent a fundamental genre in the Baroque era, with connections to the Renaissance. These works often feature ideas developed by the author, accompanied by commentary.
Analysis of a Quevedo’s Poem
It has a section that guides the reading, which could lead us to a poem similar to that of Góngora and Quevedo. There is a list of features. In the other poems, on the other hand, there is a comparison between the elements of youth and spring against the passage of time, and an allusion to the deterioration that happens. Here, we do not have these correlations. The enumeration of the garden is in the two quartets, and two triplets are for moral reflection. It refers to nature but taking elements that lead us to beauty, youth, and purity. The moral sense gives a comparison of human beauty with the beauty of nature, look around because as everyone knows the beauty of nature disappears with the change of seasons and the passage of time. He says that eventually, you will reach the lament for the pride and enjoyment of youth.